Appropriate power of words lost with ban of 'phobia'

Tuesday

Dec 18, 2012 at 12:01 AM

In its never-ending effort to avoid misleading language in news coverage, The Associated Press Stylebook has decided to declare Islamophobia, homophobia and presumably other nonclinical uses of the word "phobia" to be a new taboo.

Clarence Page

In its never-ending effort to avoid misleading language in news coverage, The Associated Press Stylebook has decided to declare Islamophobia, homophobia and presumably other nonclinical uses of the word "phobia" to be a new taboo.

What's the problem?

"It's just off the mark," AP deputy standards editor David Minthorn explained to Politico. "It's ascribing a mental disability to someone and suggests a knowledge that we don't have. It seems inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: anti-gay, or some such, if we had reason to believe that was the case."

Too bad. Words have power. Striking out such commonly used and unfortunately timely terms strikes me as a linguistic blow for blandness.

I hope that this move is applied only to news reporters who are obligated - as I was in my earlier journalistic life - to sound detached, disinterested and objective. I became an opinion writer so I could call out knuckleheads as I see them.

Even so, I don't want to overdo it. Terms like homophobia and Islamophobia are powerful invectives that get attention but also run the risk of turning off dialogue before it can be turned on.

But psychologist George Weinberg, who coined the word "homophobia" in his 1972 book "Society and the Healthy Homosexual," disagreed with AP's decision, according to The Advocate, a leading gay-oriented magazine. The "hard-won word" was so politically potent that it "made all the difference to city councils and other people I spoke to," Weinberg told interviewer Andy Humm. Whether homophobia is based on fear or "maybe envy in some cases," it shouldn't matter, he said: "We have no other word for what we're talking about, and this one is well established."

As for Islamophobia, I can think of no better word to describe some of the irrational fears I have seen on public display, especially since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Yet, one expert, American-Muslim author Eboo Patel, founding president of the Chicago-based Interfaith Youth Core and member of President Barack Obama's inaugural Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, tried to give the argument a constructive spin:

"For me, the most important thing to highlight is not the particular name we give to the irrational fear of a particular identity group," he told me in an email exchange. "It's the fact that this fear not only marginalizes the group in question, but violates the very idea of America. Our nation is based on welcoming the contributions of all communities - gays, Muslims, Evangelicals, Jews, etc. - and nurturing cooperation between them."

That's the central theme of "Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice and the Promise of America," Patel's new instructive and beautifully written memoir on how post-9/11 fears and suspicions affected him as a Muslim, born in Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, 37 years ago and raised in Glen Ellyn, Ill.

The book recounts his personal journey through the often-boiling pot of America's ethnic diversity, beginning with his shock and dismay over the backlash against Cordoba House in the summer of 2010. The proposed Muslim community center in Manhattan would have an interfaith theme, open to all - much like the YMCA or a Jewish community center.

But you may know it better as the "Victory Mosque at Ground Zero." Although the site was two blocks from ground zero, the inflammatory label was posted by conservative firebrand blogger Pamela Geller - and picked up by the New York Post, Fox News and other media as an insult to the site where almost 3,000 people were killed by Muslim fanatics.

Suddenly the father of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Raul, a well-known proponent of better interfaith relations who had condemned the Sept. 11 attacks, was being smeared as a terrorist conspirator, especially in anti-Muslim websites.

And Patel even came across his own name described in the anti-Muslim blogosphere as a "Muslim terrorist." A year earlier, he had been named by U.S. News & World Report as one of "America's best leaders" for promoting interfaith cooperation. But all Muslims look alike to some knuckleheads. That's how Islamophobia works. When the tag fits, wear it.